50,000 pour out of east Aleppo as Syria army advances

Aleppo / AFP

More than 50,000 Syrians have joined a growing exodus of terrified civilians from east Aleppo, a monitor said on Wednesday, as the UN Security Council was set for emergency talks on fighting in the city.
As government forces pressed an assault in the divided city, regime artillery fire killed at least 21 civilians in east Aleppo on Wednesday morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
Civilians have poured out of the rebel-held east in recent days, with parents carrying children and the young pushing the old in wheelchairs or makeshift carts as they flee.
Some have arrived in government-held or Kurdish-controlled territory with overstuffed suitcases and bags of their possessions, but others have come empty-handed, with only the clothes on their backs.
In the newly recaptured neighbourhood of Jabal Badro, hundreds of people massed to board government buses taking people to west Aleppo.
Government forces and allied fighters have seized a third of the rebel-held east of Aleppo since they began an operation to recapture all of the battered second city just over a fortnight ago. The loss of Aleppo would be the biggest blow for Syria’s opposition since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, before spiralling into a civil war.
The UN has for months sought access to the east, and earlier this month presented a plan to deliver aid and evacuate wounded and sick civilians. But it has failed to secure agreement from the government, even as the army’s siege has led to dwindling food supplies and the exhaustion of remaining international aid provisions in the east.

‘Situation desperate’
The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting later Wednesday on the situation, receiving a briefing from a UN humanitarian official and the UN’s peace envoy Staffan de Mistura. Syria’s opposition National Coalition said it was working with France on a draft UN resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire in Aleppo, though Russia—a staunch ally of Damascus—was likely to veto such a proposal.
As the government has advanced, more than 50,000 people have left rebel-held districts, the Observatory said on Wednesday.
It said more than 20,000 people had left to government-held neighbourhoods, with another 30,000 going to Kurdish-controlled districts.
Many others have travelled south into the remaining territory held by rebels. “The situation of those fleeing is desperate,” said Pawel Krzysiek, head of communications for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria. Syria’s Red Crescent is offering assistance in government-held areas, but does not yet have access to east Aleppo. “I can only imagine how difficult the situation must be for people who fled into the places where aid workers and supplies are not or scarcely available,” Krzysiek said.
“Our priority now is to get to all people in need.” The government’s advance on the ground has been accompanied by heavy bombardment, with air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire pounding rebel-held neighbourhoods.

City leader urges ‘safe corridor’ for Aleppo civilians 

Paris / AFP

The head of a local council in the east of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo on Wednesday called for a “safe corridor” to allow desperate civilians to flee.
“Let the civilians leave, protect the civilians, put in place a safe corridor so they can leave,” Brita Hagi Hassan said after meeting French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in Paris.
“In the name of humanity, in the name of international law, we demand that civilians be allowed to leave Aleppo and go where they want to,” he said. Hassan said Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces were carrying out a “scorched earth policy to devastate Aleppo and then occupy it”.He said 250,000 civilians “are threatened with death”, adding: “In the areas recaptured by regime forces and Iranian militias, there are summary executions and the settling of scores. All young men under 40 are being arrested.”
Ayrault said protecting civilians was the “priority of the moment”, adding: “We have no other choice but to act.” The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting later Wednesday on the situation, receiving a briefing from a UN humanitarian official and the UN’s peace envoy Staffan de Mistura.